There are certain archetypes that you see used over and over in a lot of different genre stories, and one of them is the evil sorceror. DC has it's share of them, often associated with one particular sword-and-sorcery hero or another. Travis Morgan has Deimos, Amethyst has Dark Opal, Wonder Woman has a small army of them. Meanwhile, the Justice League has their own evil sorceror villain, and he managed to be a perfect balance of mystical threat, and cackling comic-book baddie. Felix Faust is a staple of DC's pantheon of villainy.

Felix Faust's Comic History

Felix Faust was created by Gardner Fox in 1962 in Justice League of American #10, one of dozens of one-off villains that essentially mind-controled the Justice League. All of these early character have been mined for a huge number of stories over the years, and Faust is definitely one of the most prolific. This is probably due to the relatively simple-to-execute concept of an ancient magic-weilder.

As originally depicted, he was the soul of a 7,000 year-old sorceror possessing a modern-day occultist using his unspeakable magic in a constant bid for power. While there have been a few small shifts in his story over the decades the core concept has remained in place. He's very serviceable as an antagonist because he requires very little explanation; an evil sorceror that is attempting to collect various magical macguffins that has to be stopped by the heroes is a very easy set-up for a wide variety of stories. This has allowed him to serve both as the central antagoinist for huge multi-character arcs as well as small one-off episodes. You see him used quite a bit on a variety of television series for this very reason.

Our Felix Faust Story

Faust is actually one of the characters we've done a little bit of work to. He's traditionally a several-thousand-year-old sorceror, but the fact is he's traditionally used as a more mortal-seeming threat. DC has quite a few ancient magic weilders, particularly in the ranks of Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. Faust, by contrast, is constantly looking to amass influence or make demonic bargains to prolong his power. That actually feels like something more immediate and modern. To that end, we've tried to make him a more modern threat, a researcher and occultist that seems to have given over himself in her persuit for nefarious power.

Faust is one of the hardest working classic villains in DC's pantheon. You see him constantly harassing heroes of every power level because he's so adaptable. He's so well-established that he's even had a son named Sebastian Faust that was briefly a member of the Outsiders, although we're not using him for our timeline (he's essentially a 90's version of John Constantine). We've included him in the Legion of Doom, because there is no way that team of classic villains could exist without this villanous mainstay.